Good Baby TipsTips for keeping your baby happy and healthy

Dr. Sheldon H. Cherry, a well-known obstetrician and gynecologist in New York’s Mount Sinal Hospital, in his book Understanding Pregnancy and Childbirth, asserts that the decision to breast-feed or bottle-feed a baby should be completely left to the mother’s personal preferences. As she is the one taking care of the baby, it is important for her to feel comfortable with the decision. Being pressured into either method of feeding will only lead to discontentment.

Dr. Benjamin Spock in Baby and Child Care is of the opinion that as a general principle it is always safer to adopt natural ways with your baby unless there is an exception and the mother is absolutely sure that there is another, better way. In recent years, the number of breast feeding mothers is growing, as there are definite advantages known of breast feeding and perhaps others that have not yet been discovered. There are many factors that contribute to a mother’s decision to breast feed her baby. The most important one, perhaps, is the nutritional benefits of breast milk for the infant. The more research is conducted upon breast milk and its contents, the more doctors are convinced that it is the perfect food for babies.

The Nutritional Benefits:

“There are 4,000 species of mammals and they all make different milk. Human milk is made for human infants and it meets all their specific nutrient needs,” says Ruth Lawrence, M.D., professor of pediatrics and obstetrics at the University Of Rochester School Of Medicine, and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics. (Click for source) Each species’ milk has specific qualities that ensure the survival of its offspring in a particular environment. This principle is known as the biological specificity of milk. For instance, mother seals produce high-fat milk because baby seals need a lot of body fat to survive in cold water. Similarly, since brain development is crucial to the survival of humans, human milk provides nutrients for rapid brain growth. Not only does breast milk provide the best nutrition for an infant, it is specifically tailored to meet the needs as the baby grows. The milk changes its composition to meet the child’s changing needs. (Click for source)

Does breast milk contain everything a child needs? Does he require any supplements?

Vicki Lansky in the Complete Pregnancy and Baby Book expresses the opinion that as more is learnt about breast milk and its contents it becomes more obvious that breast milk contains a perfectly balanced amount of nutrients for optimal absorption in a baby’s body.

Early researches suggested that breast milk was nutritionally inadequate for infants, for instance, it did not contain a sufficient amount of iron for growing infants, which made doctors concerned about babies becoming anemic. However, it has been proven that these researches were based on inadequate studies and techniques and the small amount of iron present in the mother’s milk is optimal for absorption and enough to keep the baby from becoming anemic.

Some doctors are still concerned about the amount of fluoride present in breast milk and may suggest supplementing the baby with fluoride drops. However, babies have thrived even before the invention of fluoride drops and iron supplements, because breast milk is optimal itself. The doctors’ recommendation of these supplementary nutrients is often attributed to the fact that benefits of breast-feeding are not studied in depth and are overlooked in American Medical schools by summarizing them in one sentence “Breast feeding is best.” (Click for source)

Does formula milk contain all the same nutrients as breast milk?

For some mothers, due to various reasons, breast feeding is not an option and infant formulas have to be used. According to Dr. W. Steven Pray, Ph.D. Professor, School of Pharmacy, Southwestern Oklahoma State University, “Infant formulas have a difficult gap to fill. They must mimic breast milk as closely as possible. Yet it is difficult to produce a formula equal in all respects to breast milk, because its exact chemical composition is not yet known.” As every baby has unique nutritional requirements, according to his age, birth weight and growth rate, breast milk changes to suit these requirements whereas formula milk is a compromise between ideal infant nutrition and starvation. (Click for source)

Infant formula contains synthetic replicas of the nutrients found in breast milk. However, breast milk is so complex that it is estimated that there are still hundreds of ingredients in it that haven’t been discovered yet. Many of those that have been discovered cannot be replicated in a lab. Thus, formula milk is an imitation of breast milk but not a duplication. In addition, many ingredients in formula are as such that they cannot be readily absorbed and utilized by the baby’s body. For example, the iron found in infant formula is not easily absorbed. This can cause problems such as the baby becoming anemic from lack of iron absorption into the bloodstream or constipation due to the extra unabsorbed iron lying in the intestines.(Click for source)